That 'Feeling'

[Catstiel]

First of all a hearty hello to all! I've only just found this site over the last couple of days and been made aware of the kickstarter for City of Titans. While i was reading about it i noticed they were talking about capturing that same feeling we had in CoX (an admirable goal to be sure).

But it got me wondering, if you could pick something about CoX that encompasses that 'Feeling' what would it be?

 I remember i started just as issue 3 came out, it was my first MMO and i was dizzy with opportunity. To this day, the thing i love most, that gave me that 'feeling'  was the random street crime. The people calling for help, the muggers tugging on the purses, the hooligans loitering in the streets (If there's one thing i can't stand, it's loitering!). You just don't find that in the newer superhero MMOs. You have zones where one group of bad guys hangs out for a specific mission. There's no low level flunkies doing what low level flunkies love to do. The citizens never have to deal with getting mugged, not with all the apocalyptic stuff going on. Cars remain un-looted, street corners are no longer a haven for gangs. Not once have i been attacked with something as common as a knife/gun/baseball bat...it's always lasers and death beams and who knows what else.

So for me, it was the simple crime that made me feel like a hero. Got a gang of hellions on your new Nissan? No problem, you're friendly neighborhood controller can send them flying away with Gale. 

[JWBullfrog]

You've hit upon part of it Cat. Paragon felt alive and organic. It was somplace that people actually lived, not just a place to come back to to sell off all your junk.
 
Paragon was a character all on it's own. Every neighborhood felt unique and not forced. Even though there was some duplication of buildings, we forgave it because, every section felt like it belonged there.
 
As you pointed out, you had street thugs but there were so much more. Muggers, grafitti artists and people about to take a swim with the fishes, ladies of negoiable virtue and the press. Cars on the road and a blimp in the air. Paragon was alive in a way that no other RPG city has ever quite matched.

[Catstiel]

Muggers, grafitti artists and people about to take a swim with the fishes, ladies of negoiable virtue and the press. Cars on the road and a blimp in the air. Paragon was alive in a way that no other RPG city has ever quite matched.

I'd completely forgotten about the random conversations you could overhear. I remember i used to play hide and seek in the City Hall in Atlas Park, I'd amuse myself listening to everyone talking about me while i hid behind a statue.

[Eoraptor]

"and I hope you get cut on the clasp! and it gets infected!"

Other RPG's are all about the grind. all about "go slay ten dragons and bring me their teeth for this nifty piece of armor" City of Heroes jumped you in right in the deep end, making you save people from muggings from page one word one just like a real super hero. The city was alive and organic just like Marvels NYC or DC's Metropolis. Even its closest competitor, Champions Online, has only the vague shadow of that organic living nature. No cars rolling down the street, no grafiti artists tagging the nearest building or picking the locks on a warehouse door or randomly jeering at you as you came within range, no people walking by at random who you can click on for random cute messages...

In short, CoX did what it set out to do; it MADE you a superhero in a city of heroes. You felt like you were literally the costume you put on, and you were really helping the random people you saved, or the radio missions you ran, or the story arcs you portrayed. Nothing else has matched that, and as the years go by, they all drift farther away from that ideal in favour of highly profitable, addictive, and abusive grindfests where you do nothing but click "highest level power" over and over again for four hours at a time.

praise be to Glob almighty that CoX never implemented Lockboxes and its shop fit well into the game rather than being just pay-to-win. That's what made Paragon different. It avoided the money-making tropes every other MMO out there suckled at.

[FatherXmas]

Super Packs were our lockboxes since you could buy them. 

The lack of a WoW style endgame helped that feeling but hurt economically.  Too many weaned on WoW couldn't handle an MMO where rushing to max level was not simply the opening act.  I see the same complaints in GW2 from WoW/WoW clone players.  It's too alien of a concept to live in the now, play what's around you and not just rush to the end.  They tend not to stay around.

[Floride]

I remember getting off of the train in Atlas, flying out of the station and accidentally green-ringing a hellion before doing a 180 and darting off to Wentworths. A couple minutes into my wheeling and dealing (and having completely forgotten about the hellion) some poor, out of breath NPC lady finally found me in Wentworths and thanked me for saving her, telling me she was going to name her first child after me.
The toon next to mine turned to me slowly, turned back to the Wents NPC, and said in local "You better hope your wife doesn't find out."

[thunderforce]

I remember that too; and getting over the cognitive dissonance engendered by realising you should probably just walk on by the random muggings if you wanted to see any content...

[Alpha Series]

                         Man....I remember that initial shock that I'd entered an environment where everyone had a different goal in mind then just a play grind, do this puzzle, do that and you're done...I suddenly realized that a higher goal and ideal was in effect. We were there to save the city.. all of us. And the team members cared about each other and sought to aid and enhance the gameplay of the entire team, and the entire City full of Heroes. I was dumbstruck. I'd found a game environment where everyone felt the same way I did about being part of a game, not just grinding and collecting, solving endless puzzles that had devious solutions designed to drive you screwy. I miss the City so much. I had no idea I would miss it this badly. Yes, I miss " that feeling". The feeling of being part of something wondrous and glorious, bigger and better than any other game or environment. I wish you all well. I hope to team with you all again soon.

[Captain Electric]

I remember that too; and getting over the cognitive dissonance engendered by realising you should probably just walk on by the random muggings if you wanted to see any content...

I treated City of Heroes like a big interactive comic book (or series of comic books). And I didn't like to simply ignore those areas where game mechanics butted up against comic book themes; not if I could come up with a good explanation for it in my head. This cognitive dissonance was one of those things, but it really stumped me how I wanted to think about it. Logically it didn't make a bit of sense. These gray color-conned punks in lower-level zones wouldn't challenge me, nor would they run away from me. I could walk right up to a group of them in the midst of a crime. And just stand there. Even though I had the "sensation" badge; dinner at the White House was passe for me. Surely they knew.

Combine this with the fact that the overarching storyline was explicit in the notion that, as I progressed through the game/stories, I was helping to clean up the city and end out-of-control crime. Maybe with my friends help. Just like in the comics, that depended to me on whether I was playing the stories solo or with teammates. Usually I shared the notion that other heroes were out there, helping. But this latter part is fast and loose. An issue of The Amazing Spider-Man where the news reports, "Spidey 'menace' cleans up crime in New York?" doesn't usually add, "And don't forget the Avengers, Fantastic Four, Young Avengers, hey come on there's like 1,000 other heroes in New York too!!!"

Anyway, one day, it hit me. All of those gray mobs couldn't be logical because they couldn't be real. They were memories. My memories, or recollections of reports I'd heard about those neighborhoods. "That is the corner where I saved a woman's purse. That is the storefront where those grisly murders of 2009 ended." Like in the movies, the way you might see a flashback overlapped on top of the present. Each time I ran through a zone, I was remembering all that had been done to destroy innocent lives there, and all that had been done to save those areas from crime.

Every now and then, I'd let a gray-conning punk be "real". Some poor idiot trying to live the thug life in a city of super-powered protectors. I'd give them one good thump on the chin on my way to bigger and more dangerous threats, and leave them unconscious and tied up for the PPD's "garbage collectors" to pick up.

[FatherXmas]

A little thing I loved about the game is you are significantly higher than a group of thugs who were already riled up and fighting someone more appropriate level, just your presence is enough to scatter them.  It made it a bit difficult to benignly up a low level character such as healing or dropping a bubble on them or the occasional ice patch. 

I use to fight Darwin's law helping low levels who over aggro mobs in The Hollows on Victory.  I use to stand on a roof and watch players try to do the "get 10 outlaws/get 10 trolls" missions who just end up aggroing much larger groups.  I would leap in, heal them, drop an ice patch (maybe the other way around) leap out and hope I didn't scatter the mob too far with my presence.

[ukaserex]

For me - it was the global channels. I belonged to a couple of private channels, a couple of public ones. I learned most of what I learned from monitoring folks talking about softcap defense and various other aspects of character builds.

I also could do what I wanted to do and wait until the days stresses eased off to the point where I could team without biting someone's head off. By monitoring the channels, I could either sit back and wait until something interested me, or announce my own team/task.

By and large, being able to monitor and participate in the chat channels made me feel I was a part of things instead of an outsider looking in.

[thunderforce]

For me - it was the global channels. I belonged to a couple of private channels, a couple of public ones. I learned most of what I learned from monitoring folks talking about softcap defense and various other aspects of character builds.

Global chat coming in is one of my fondest memories. All of a sudden, you could follow sal's badgehunters (the earlier Union badge channel) and Defiant Badgers, or whatever, and be spared the (sadly lacking) routine LFT interface.

[healix]

Like FatherXmas, I LOVED taking my 50 healer to Perez/The Hollows and help. I would go super invisible and hover above a struggling hero, and keep their health up. After the battle it was fun to watch them pivot around, trying to spot me. I'd usually fly off really quickly before they did.

[Catstiel]

After the battle it was fun to watch them pivot around, trying to spot me. I'd usually fly off really quickly before they did.

I've been on both ends of that. I used to do a zone-wide thank you and just hope whoever saved me managed to see it.

[JaguarX]

Oh yeah, the good old hollows.

Although I used to fly in arbitrariy in a friendly moment, and help out lower levels, it hit me one time with this one case. One guy got super upset for saving his skin. At first thought I was a bit bewilderned. I just saved your bacon, why the fuss? Until he explained that he is trying to learn the game and figure out his limits and how can he if everytime take a hit, some high level hero comes by and heals him?  I thought about it and it made sense to me, because when I'm fighting a group and trying to figure out what I can and cannot do, it kind of kills it when some one trying to be helpful and dont mean any harm comes along and basically ruins it. Sure he could simply do that only inside missions but then people could simply not heal him just as easily and leave him be. 

After that, to not appear rude, I ask first to check. Some say no thanks they got it, others like are like "Dude! Save my bacon! What are you waiting for?!" Then I thought I wondered how many other people I ruined their goal and they didnt say anything but was happy about it? I think asking first before doing that even though it's all in good faith and trying to be helpful, is better than swooping in and assuming they need the help or rather want the help.

[FatherXmas]

Like FatherXmas, I LOVED taking my 50 healer to Perez/The Hollows and help. I would go super invisible and hover above a struggling hero, and keep their health up. After the battle it was fun to watch them pivot around, trying to spot me. I'd usually fly off really quickly before they did.

I have to admit I got more of a few virtual double takes when an 8 1/2 ft tall Santa Claus lands, heals and SJs away.

[johnrobey]

I remember getting off of the train in Atlas, flying out of the station and accidentally green-ringing a hellion before doing a 180 and darting off to Wentworths. A couple minutes into my wheeling and dealing (and having completely forgotten about the hellion) some poor, out of breath NPC lady finally found me in Wentworths and thanked me for saving her, telling me she was going to name her first child after me.
The toon next to mine turned to me slowly, turned back to the Wents NPC, and said in local "You better hope your wife doesn't find out."

ROFL!!!!!   Yeah I miss the awesome player to player interactions in CoH.  Unlike other MMO's it seemed like people you didn't even know in CoH were often KEWL!!!

[johnrobey]

In short, CoX did what it set out to do; it MADE you a superhero in a city of heroes. You felt like you were literally the costume you put on, and you were really helping the random people you saved, or the radio missions you ran, or the story arcs you portrayed. Nothing else has matched that, and as the years go by, they all drift farther away from that ideal in favour of highly profitable, addictive, and abusive grindfests where you do nothing but click "highest level power" over and over again for four hours at a time.

While I like what other posts in this thread had to say as well (e.g. Hello, Captain Electric!  ), what Eoraptor said here most closely captures my game play experience.  I mean, sure, I know it was just pixels and programs, but I used to really savor the storylines and character development, and preferred that by far for personal enjoyment than the perhaps more lucrative Run and Gun, quick get to the end and the reward and on to the next.   I really like to savor game play as much as possible, ideally joking either in or out of character (or both) along the way.

[JWBullfrog]

I used to really savor the storylines and character development, and preferred that by far for personal enjoyment than the perhaps more lucrative Run and Gun, quick get to the end and the reward and on to the next.   

Paragon had plenty to do even when you weren't doing anything 'important.' It let you have a social life that didn't revolve around raids or dungeons or doing the next thing that got you the next shiney. You could do all of those if you wanted to but City gave you a gameplay experience that had nothing at all to do with character advancement. You could, on any average day:
 
Hold a costume contest.
 
Be in a costume contest
 
Trivia games over open chat.
 
Hide and Seek.
 
Base building.
 
Exploration badge hunting.
 
Juggle and dance for the crowds
 
just sit and talk with friends
 
All of these things had little to no effect on character advancement. Yet ever one of them made the game fun. Other games do allow for things like this, but only City never made it feel like you were wasting valuable raiding time doing so.
 
Paragon City was alive. And, the fact that we are still talking about it, means that it still lives.
 
"A man's not dead while his name's still spoken." - T. Pratchett
 

[AlphaFerret]

No matter what level i was, if I witnessed an attempted purse snatch in Atlas Park, my heroic avatar had to intervene.  I just felt too guilty turning my back on the citizens that helped supply my Influence.  In no other game have I meddled in the affairs of npc lowbies.

We need our City back!

[johnrobey]

Hi JWB!  Yes, i definitely agree with what you say here.  I can think of lots of times when people were just visiting out of character, often on an SG channel or a global chat channel, while playing.  And that doesn't include all the people, myself too on occasion, who very much enjoyed in-character, in-game roleplaying.   (No, I wasn't a regular at Pocket D on Virtue, but can appreciate the appeal and enjoyment for those into it.)  With all the teamups, helping one another, and in and out of character visiting, no wonder real friendships were created, and in some cases still endure.  (Hugs to @Heroette, for example, and to @Healix, who I met only after server shutdown here on Titan.)

LOL, AlphaFerret, that takes me back!  I can sure relate to what you are saying and LOL, sometimes I would intervene as you describe regardless of level.  I remember one late night during my first couple of months making a noobish attempt to keep the streets of Steel Canyon free from crime, mostly from the (then) yellowline train station to Wentworth's.  I had fun roleplaying big time in my head, wondered about the counter (I don't think any of these counted towards defeats badges and besides I was such a grass-green noob I had no idea what those were), but eventually got tired of defeating Grays and roleplaying Hero in my head and went on to the next arc, confident that, either for XP or not, in time another hero would come along to sweep these streets clean once again!  Ditto for hunting out the hill in the Hollows!  Fun times!

[Eoraptor]

We need our City back!

Recently this idea has been running through my head... the scene from Princess Bride where Inigo has cornered the six fingered man, Count Ruegen, and is slashing him up;

"Promise me Money..."
"As much as you wish"
"And promise me Power"
"All that I have and more"
"Promise me anything I ask"
"Anything you want"
*STAB*
"I want my city back you son of a bitch!"

[antarcticaa]

"I want my city back you son of a bitch!"

/agree with all the above posts
I miss the special camaraderie we had.  Chatting in SG.  Joining a tf with a random group with who needed a specific type, even though you wanted to play another character, because it felt better helping someone out.  Giving someone a few levels, or having the same favor done for one of my own toons, simply because we wanted to.  The countless random acts of kindness I saw and participated in.  Chatting with friends or making new ones in game.  Designing so many costumes (sure was cheaper than going out and buying clothes, lol.)  Taking on new challenges or simply enjoying the different zones and cruising around.  I miss it.  I miss y'all!

[healix]

[microc]

a miss that evil jello in the game...

[Aura Controller]

Lately I've been watching the justice league and I find myself thinking. "I want to jump in and help. I want to save that citizen. I want to fight along side the heroes... like I use to."

[Catstiel]

"I want to jump in and help. I want to save that citizen. I want to fight along side the heroes... like I use to."

I want to go beat the cogs out of every clockwork that ever trapped me in an electric cage while i was flying.

[Eoraptor]

I want to shank every freakshow I come across "And this time, stay down!" I hated those self-rezing schmucks

[JWBullfrog]

I want to shank every freakshow I come across "And this time, stay down!" I hated those self-rezing schmucks

Hey, hey, hey.... they were the "Buy one get one free" XP group.

[Lady Luck]

Lately I've been watching the justice league and I find myself thinking. "I want to jump in and help. I want to save that citizen. I want to fight along side the heroes... like I use to."

I've been watching Justice League and Young Justice myself and it makes me miss my heroes so much.
Especially Young Justice, Heroes struggling to become a team, learning who makes a good team leader and such. -sigh- 

[Captain Electric]

One day we will all have Paragon City back.

And when that day comes...

I am going to log into Atlas Park and start a political or religious argument in broadcast.

[DJMoose]

I have to admit I got more of a few virtual double takes when an 8 1/2 ft tall Santa Claus lands, heals and SJs away.

LOL to this mental image!

/agree with all the above posts
I miss the special camaraderie we had.  Chatting in SG.  Joining a tf with a random group with who needed a specific type, even though you wanted to play another character, because it felt better helping someone out.  Giving someone a few levels, or having the same favor done for one of my own toons, simply because we wanted to.  The countless random acts of kindness I saw and participated in.  Chatting with friends or making new ones in game.  Designing so many costumes (sure was cheaper than going out and buying clothes, lol.)  Taking on new challenges or simply enjoying the different zones and cruising around.  I miss it.  I miss y'all!

This; the only mmo where I truly enjoyed doing random missions with pugs (99% of the time anyway...). 
I met most of my in-game friends this way, usually hanging out after a mission and chatting about each other's costumes and power combos.

[Floride]

LOL to this mental image! :DThis; the only mmo where I truly enjoyed doing random missions with pugs (99% of the time anyway...). 
I met most of my in-game friends this way, usually hanging out after a mission and chatting about each other's costumes and power combos.

The events were great for pugging - ToTing, BNY, V-day, Summer - I met a lot of cool people that way.

[healix]

[crashpositron]

The feeling I miss from CoX in CO is PUGs.  You can't just start up a team and do stuff - as soon as you do a couple of the boss's mishes, you end up with an outdoor glowy hunt and if you have 5 on the team, that means 5 x 15 = 75 glowies to collect, of which there are 20, so you end up standing around waiting for mobs to respawn . . . .
also the mishes don't increase mob sizes or difficulty for a team - 8 guys on your team? Still the same two minions in the mish. Oh, do a team mish and you don't have it on your mish list? Too bad, it doesn't count towards your arc. 

[JaguarX]

The feeling I miss from CoX in CO is PUGs.  You can't just start up a team and do stuff - as soon as you do a couple of the boss's mishes, you end up with an outdoor glowy hunt and if you have 5 on the team, that means 5 x 15 = 75 glowies to collect, of which there are 20, so you end up standing around waiting for mobs to respawn . . . .
also the mishes don't increase mob sizes or difficulty for a team - 8 guys on your team? Still the same two minions in the mish. Oh, do a team mish and you don't have it on your mish list? Too bad, it doesn't count towards your arc. 

well the team mish not in the list, COX worked the same way. If ya don't have that particular mission in the list at the time, forget about it, even if it's the next one.

But there is a feature where you can share mission. Meaning complete one and anyone with that mission in their list and clicked on the share option will get completed. Meaning only 15 glowies have to be collected and the rest that put it in their mission list should get a complete for it. But sometimes it bugs out at times.

Yeah the mobs in most missions scale for some reason really don't scale for team. Go figure. Besides a few lairs and missions dealing with Viper.

But by definition in CO one can simply start up a PUG but it's not heavily rewarded or nudged towards like it was in COX. In CO it really test the real reason of teaming. Many say it's about the camaraderie, and social, but in CO where the rewards for teaming is all but removed, the true nature shows that majority of the time people were just talking and it's about the rewards. In CO teaming for rewards probably will be severely disappointed especially if they were used to the gift drops for teaming in COX rewards. But for those that want to team just to team for truly camaraderie and teaming and social, there is nothing in the way of it. But they wont be overly heavily rewarded for it.